Growing emergencies in the ARC
by bhut
Summary: For a relatively small animal, Dragon the Dracorex had caused quite a big commotion in the ARC, actually threatening to divide the Center's staff in their opinion, for good.


**A rift**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

For a relatively small (well, compared to a mammoth, let alone a giganotosaurus) animal, Dragon the Dracorex had caused quite a big commotion in the ARC, actually threatening to divide the Center's staff in their opinion, for good.

"I just don't get it," James Lester confided to his secretary, Lorraine, "I mean, yes it's a dinosaur, but all that it does is graze and laze. Some of the livestock that I've seen in a petting zoo did the same thing, yet they never aroused such strong emotion."

"I think sir, that you've hit the matter right on," Lorraine replied, diplomatically. "Dragon is a dinosaur, which makes him an animal, and every kind of animal has its fans and... anti-fans, I suppose."

"Please restrain yourself from using that sort of slang, Lorraine, and what's _your_ point, precisely? That our staff may simply divide into camps because of likes or dislikes for animals – well, one particular animal?"

"Um, yes sir?"

"That is intolerable!" Lester snapped angrily, "something has to be done! Lorraine, I think I want a general meeting of the staff. This damn dinosaur is becoming one of the main problems, without any pay-off-"

"Sir?" Lorraine interrupted her boss, "actually Mr. Temple is planning to undertake some sort of an experiment today, so-"

"Oh, fine, we might as well go and take a look," Lester said flatly, "and if I am not impressed, Shaggy Dog down there can just release him back from when he came-"

"That would be the Mesozoic, sir-" Lorraine began but stopped, when it became clear that Lester was not amused or in a mood for talk. "Right, let's go."

Downstairs, there was a gathering of people, including Becker and his soldiers, mostly centered on the animal wing.

"Captain," Lester said, still in a rather foul mood. "Glad to see that you're not taking sides here, really."

"Oh, we're just assisting Connor Temple," Becker replied with an unreadable facial expression. "He's going to experiment some with the animals, and we're here to be on hand if it goes amuck."

"You mean amok, captain."

"These are wild animals, sir. Muck and worse substances are very much included."

"And thank you so very much for that mental imagery, captain. Now is Temple going to condone the experiment-" Lester trailed away, as the ARC's Columbian mammoth finally made its appearance, following a trail of food (roughly a wheelbarrow's worth).

"...What is he doing?" Lester finally found his voice.

"I think that he's going to see how they will take to one another," Becker began, but Lester had already turned back to Lorraine:

"Get the medical staff ready – and don't forget the veterinarians – the ones who, hopefully, aren't dating Connor Temple at the moment."

"Miss Maitland is already down there, to morally support the mammoth-"

"Yeah, right," Lester snorted. "I think I see the problem, so to speak. Lorraine-"

Further down in the room, the dinosaur finally saw the mammoth – and froze, for just several minutes, before... re-starting its own feeding.

Lester blinked. "All right, I am not impressed. What did Connor expect to happen?"

"This, sir. Apparently, four-legged animals during the age of the dinosaurs were always herbivorous, and thus not primarily dangerous to Dragon and his species. Connor Temple postulated that if Dragon will see his room-mate, it – or he – will naturally assume that it is another herbivore – and rightly so – and will not charge-"

"That's it?" Lester blinked and mentally counted down to twenty while the mammoth and the dinosaur continued to feed peacefully alongside each other, like some sort of a messed-up Biblical-allegorical picture.

"Apparently so, sir," Lorraine said cautiously, aware that Lester was not being in a very good mood at the moment.

"I see. Get me Shaggy and Daphne – no, tell them to come to my office after they resolved this situation, pronto."

"Yes sir," Lorraine gulped. Something... unpleasant was going to happen in the future, she was sure of it.

"There was a time when naturalists have thought that animals do not resemble us at all. All of their behaviour, their habits and various skills were supposedly utterly instinctive, inborn. They acted like automatons, via programming, input into them from their births via genetic inheritance.

"...Earlier, the zoologists have studied the dead animals via their hides and bones, often brought from afar, dried-out, preserved in alcohol. They were compared, described, discussed. The successes were great, but almost entirely in such sciences as anatomy, morphology, systematic, faunistics, embryology.

"...But the many finer points of animal behaviour that surprise us now, were discovered and investigated only in the last thirty of twenty years.

"This happened because zoologists and zoopsychologists, whose names later grew renown, decided to leave their laboratories for nature, and sitting at the burrows, nests, lairs, have attentively, daily, hourly, observed the lives of beasts and birds at their home, freely – well you two get the point, right?"

Abby and Connor blinked and stared at Lester as if they have never seen him before. "What's the title of the book that you were quoting, sir?" Abby finally spoke-up. "It didn't sound like something that you would read-"

"And it's not. Lately, however, with you two instigating all of these debates of animals vs. dinosaurs I felt rather out of my depth, and so I had asked Lorraine to ask someone of our consulting branch to give me a layman's explanation to what was going on here – and the consultant gave me this book, alongside several others. Considering that it was published in the late 1960s, I expected it to be hopelessly outdated – but it _wasn't_."

"Sir?" Connor asked warily – he saw the look on Lester's face and didn't like it.

"Now, Temple here happens to be in a very similar spot to those zoologists who have studied dead animals, because that is what palaeontologists do: all they get to study are petrified bones, maybe some footprints and remains of digested meals as well... but now he's got a live animal of his dreams to study, naturally he's working in an overdrive. And that brings me to you, Maitland."

"Sir?" It was Abby's turn to sweat under Lester's gaze.

"You're the more experienced zoologist or whatever, you should've recognized Connor's signs for what they are, instead of going at him like my nagging ex-wife tends to go at her latest man."

Abby goggled.

"In other words," Lester continued, blithely ignoring Connor's red face or Abby's rapidly purpling one, "your behaviour is unprofessional and has started a rift in the ARC. So, I am having you on a sick leave for the next couple of weeks or so, effective immediately, I suppose."

"So what am I supposed to do?" Abby whispered.

The look on Lester's face was suspiciously like gloating. "Oh, don't give me the look of a Very Frightened Squirrel – you'll be back very soon and you know it. For now, though, you're officially on the sick leave, so please leave."

Abby gulped and wordlessly complied; Connor remained there, staring open-mouthed at Lester.

"And don't give me that look either, Temple – I suggest that you tone down your enthusiasm for the dinosaur before we have some sort of a new home-grown complication – something that I would rather avoid, got it?"

Mutely, Connor nodded in agreement.

"Good boy," Lester nodded smugly. "Now off you go."

...As the door closed behind Connor Temple as well, Lester leaned back and smiled: it was good to be a competent boss who has resolved the crisis once and for all. (Sadly, this was not going to be the case, but for now, James Lester could – and did – relax.)

_To be continued..._


End file.
